Neuroscience: Encyclopedia II - Neuroscience - Fields within neuroscience

Neuroscience - Fields within neuroscience

There are many areas of study within neuroscience including:

• Molecular and cellular neuroscience: These two fields integrate neurobiology with neurochemistry. The goals of these fields are to understand the cellular and chemical mechanisms responsible for normal and abnormal brain function.
• Developmental neuroscience: This field studies the ways in which the ectodermally-derived central nervous system and mesodermally-derived peripheral nervous system develops into adulthood. Developmental neuroscience uses a variety of animal models including the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , zebrafish Danio rerio, Xenopus laevis tadpoles, and the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, among others.
• Cognitive neuroscience: Cognitive neuroscience aims to understand the brain mechanisms the underlie "higher level" brain functions, usually in humans. These functions include language, learning and memory, attention, emotion, etc.
• Computational and systems neuroscience: These two fields are interested in understanding the computational roles of various parts of the nervous sytem. The methods of research combine computer and mathematical computational models with physiological recordings of single cells, neuronal clusters, and entire brain systems to learn and model brain function.
• Neurobiology of disease: This field, directly aligned with medical research, is interested in understanding diseases associated with the nervous system.

"Neuroscience" is a blanket term that refers to all the specific fields that study the nervous system. In some sense, psychology is actually a sub-field of neuroscience, although some mind/body theorists argue that the definition goes the other way. Neurobiology is often used interchangeably with neuroscience, but may refer specifically to the study of the biology of the nervous system. There is, however, some ambiguity within the neuroscience community as to the difference between the two terms.

Other related and overlapping fields include:

• Aphasiology
• Computational neuroscience
• Neuroanatomy
• Neurochemistry
• Neuroeconomics
• Neuroendocrinology
• Neuroesthetics
• Neuroethology
• Neuroheuristic
• Neuroimaging
• Neurolinguistics
• Neurology
• Neuromarketing
• Neurophilosophy
• Neurophysiology
• Neuropsychiatry
• Neuropsychology
• Neurotheology (also Biotheology)
• Neuropsychopharmacology
• Psychiatry
• Psychopharmacology
• Psychobiology (also Biopsychology, also Biological psychology)
• Evolutionary neuroscience
• Neurogenomics
• Neurophenomenology
• Neuroethics
• Neuroprosthetics
• Neural engineering

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Fields within neuroscience", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki